A Chance Encounter

Disclaimer: I do not own the universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement. Sadly both Battlestar Galactica and Robotech remain the property of their respective creators and I make no profit from their use so please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly on a leash. Only the OC characters like the crew of the Excalibur belong to me and shouldn't be used without my express permission.

Authors Note: I know what your all thinking, another story. This is actually an idea that I've been working on intermittently for a few months. Now the first part of this two or three shot story is ready I thought the time has come to share it with you all.

My thanks to Cyclone and bob regent for being such great beta's and idea sounding boards for this story.

Part One

Captain John Harrison resisted, just, the impulse to do something violent to his desktop terminal as another report appeared on the screen for him to read and review. Instead, he settled for glaring and inwardly, for the umpteenth time, wondering what the bloody hell he'd been thinking when he had agreed to transfer from flying veritechs to ship operations, a path that had led him here to his current command. He knew the reason, of course: Rick Hunter had asked him to – and you didn't say no to someone that high ranked... well, not unless you were drunk, crazy, or stupid, anyway, let alone someone who'd become a damned good friend over the years – when the Robotech Defence Force really started laying the groundwork for the mission to find Tirol, the homeworld of the mysterious but undeniably powerful Robotech Masters. Plus, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

John sighed softly to himself. If he was honest with himself, he liked his current job, commanding Pathfinder Group Four with the Tristar-class heavy cruiser Excalibur as his flagship. The pathfinder groups, like the six ships under his command, were sent out to scout ahead of the SDF-3 Pioneer and the rest of the expeditionary force. Their mission to check for any potential threats to the main force, though it would have to be quite a major one to be anything more than a minor annoyance, given all their ships bristled with weaponry, as well as searching for any sign that they were on the right track to Tirolian space. The latter was necessary as the Zentraedi, unfortunately, hadn't been able to do much more than provide a rough idea of where Tirolian space was in relation to Sol; the navigational star maps that would have provided that data having been vaporised when Dolza's base was atomised during the Rain of Death. At least, that was their primary mission; their secondary objective was to scan any habitable worlds they stumbled across for potential colonisation as part of the Gloval Initiative.

It was a big responsibility, and there were times when it got to him a bit, especially times like now when he'd just finished one load of the electronic descendant of paperwork only for another load to seemingly spontaneously materialise out of cyberspace for him to do. It was at times like this that he wished for the sheer simplicity of the old days flying a Valkyrie as one of Skull Squadron; back then, his only concern had been staying alive – too many of his old friends, amongst them Roy Fokker and Jeff Kramer, hadn't – and sending any attacking Zentraedi forces packing with their asses firmly kicked.

The sudden bleeping of the desktop comm unit brought him out of his thoughts, which had been turning decidedly nostalgic – something he mentally berated himself for; he was only 36 for goodness' sakes. Shaking himself, he pushed the mental recriminations aside as he reached out and touched a control on the offending device. "Yes," he asked in his normal warm Welsh-accented voice.

"Sorry to disturb you, Captain, but our sensors have just registered something unusual. Can you please come to the bridge?" the familiar voice of Commander Tylen Rou reported.

"Of course, Commander, I'll be right there," John replied standing up from his desk, grateful for a chance to get away from his paperwork at least for a time.

"Yes, sir."

As Tylen signed off, he turned and left his quarters. As he began to make the short journey to the bridge, he couldn't help but wonder what it was there sensors had detected; whatever it was, it had to be something truly unusual for the micronized Zentraedi warrior who served as his XO to call him to the bridge in this way. While he had initially been somewhat sceptical about having a Zentraedi as one of his senior officers –, after all it wasn't really that long ago that they'd been the most mortal of enemies – he'd since come to appreciate him both as a man and as an officer. Thus, he knew Tylen wouldn't call him unless it was absolutely necessary.

It took only a few minutes for him to reach the bridge. By design, the commanding officers' quarters were close to the bridge, allowing a ship's master or mistress to get there quickly in the event of an emergency. After exchanging polite nods with the two armoured marines guarding the entrance to the bridge, he stepped into the command centre.

"What is it, Ty?" he asked his first officer. The Zentraedi officer had accepted the affectionate nickname with good grace, seeing it as a sign that he was truly being accepted amongst the otherwise Human crew.

"Captain, a few minutes ago, our long range sensors detected a large gamma radiation spike inside a class three nebula point zero two light-years off our present course," Tylen replied. "At first, I thought nothing of it, but an analysis indicates the spike was caused by the detonation of a crude nuclear fission device."

John blinked. "A nuke," he repeated surprised. "How large a blast?"

"The computer believes the yield to have been approximately three megatons. Crude."

"But quite effective, even by our standards," John reminded the Zentraedi; indeed, back during the war, the Zentraedi had learned that the hard way. While primitive in comparison to plasma and reflex explosives, nukes could still be very dangerous. During the final battle with Dolza, more than one Zentraedi warship had been transformed into irradiated dust by a nuclear strike.

"How long ago was the blast?" he asked after a moment of thought, knowing the gamma radiation spike wouldn't be travelling at light speed, unlike the flash of the explosion would have been, assuming they could have seen it as class three nebulae were dust heavy nebula that didn't emit as much visible light as other types did.

"Our best guess is anywhere from nine months to a year," Tylen answered.

"Hmm, I doubt there is anyone or anything left there by now, but still, we should check it out," John mused aloud. "All right, recall our CAP and have all ships plot an immediate hyperspace fold to the approximate coordinates of the nuclear explosion."

Tylen gave a small smile. "I anticipated that order," he replied. "The course has already been plotted; as soon as the last of the veritechs are aboard, we'll be able to fold."

John chuckled appreciatively. "Good work," he said approvingly even as he moved over to the command chair and sat down. "Inform me the moment the last of the CAP have landed."

"Yes… I mean aye, Sir," Tylen replied stumbling slightly - and not for the first time - over the correct response to an order; though he'd worked with the Excalibur's crew for the last two years, there were still sometimes when the differences between Human and Zentraedi military etiquette showed themselves.

"Communications," John called out as Ty turned to supervising the landings of the Combat Aerospace Patrol that protocol demanded be maintained around the squadron the whole time they were away from home and in normal space.

"Sir?"

"Send a priority hyperspace comm message to the SDF-3. Advise Admiral Hayes of the situation and inform her that we're space folding to the coordinates to investigate."

"Aye, sir."

As his bridge crew hurried to carry out his instructions, John leaned back in the command chair and frowned thoughtfully. He couldn't help but wonder just who it was that had set off a nuclear bomb inside the nebula, and why they had gone in there in the first place. As far as he was aware, class three nebulae were not the most hospitable places to go, and navigating inside one was far from easy as all the dust tended to cloud sensor screens in a manner similar to a white out, with only shorter range sensors still functioning, and even they only worked at a substantially reduced level. Any ship flying in there would be, for all intents and purposes, effectively blind. It was not a sane place for anyone to want to go. Unless whoever or whatever they were were hiding from something, he thought, but even then, there are far more effective places to hide in this sector than this nebula. Unless we're missing something.

"Sir," communications called out, bringing him out of his thoughts, "the SDF-3 has acknowledged our intentions and wishes us good luck, and Admiral Hayes wants a report on our findings as soon as possible."

"Understood," John replied reflexively, sitting up straighter in the command chair. Don't worry, Lisa, I won't forget to file the report, he thought with a mental smirk; while he may hate paperwork as much as the next officer, he made sure to deliver it, usually at the last minute. Lisa Hunter – though she used her maiden name in her professional life to prevent confusion arising between her and Rick, given they were both admirals – was well aware of that fact and was thus telling him she wanted the report from him sooner rather than later.

"Sir, the last of our CAP has docked," Tylen reported. "Hangar bays are being secured, and alert squadrons are being prepped on the catapults. All ships report ready to execute space fold."

"Understood. All ships, execute space fold in thirty seconds."

"Aye, sir."

Leaning back in the command chair again, John waited, keeping his eyes on the data display that had appeared on the command console showing the countdown to the execution of the hyperspace fold jump. Even after all this time, he still sometimes had trouble wrapping his head around the reality of humanity now having interstellar travel. Granted, they'd had some trouble with hyperspace folding at first – like everyone else who'd been there, he well remembered the SDF-1 space folding to Pluto's orbit when they'd been aiming for the dark side of the moon, incidentally dragging Macross Island and chunk of Pacific Ocean through hyperspace with them – the Zentraedi who'd sided with them had soon put them straight on how to use space folding properly. Now the people of his homeworld – battered, bruised, and battle scarred maybe – had the whole galaxy at their doorstep, thanks to the miracle of robotechnology. If only that miracle hadn't cost us billions of lives, he thought, feeling a familiar stab of pain at the reminder of seeing large parts of Earth burning during the Rain of Death. Like many people, he'd lost loved ones in the Rain, in his case, one of his sisters who'd been in London where she'd worked at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital when the two millennia old city was obliterated by a reflex cannon blast.

For a moment, he saw her again, smiling at him at the last family get together that they'd shared before the First Robotech War began, then the familiar thrum of power through the ship brought him out of those thoughts, and he dismissed Sarah's ghost, at least for now. He looked up at the viewports as a shimmering bubble of eldritch energy popped into existence around the ship as the fold sphere established itself, then the bubble turned into streaking starlight – that never ceased to remind him of the initial hyperspace entry from Star Wars – as the fold bubble submerged the ship into hyperspace…

…but only for a moment.

With a flash, the starlight evaporated into the shimmering bubble of the fold sphere, again only for a moment, as the bubble evaporated. Instead of in the open depths of starlit space, the fleet was now in a system surrounded by shimmering veins of dark dust. Ahead of them was a planet illuminated by the feeble light of a distant white sun. Even from a distance, the planet looked cold, its surface dominated by large fields of snow and ice, its oceans a pale grey.

"Unpleasant looking place," he mused aloud, as it hardly seemed like somewhere someone would bother fighting a battle, including the use of at least one nuke probably more, over.

"It is, sir," Tylen agreed.

"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from the Cheyenne,"Communications reported across the bridge before John could order the ship closer to the planet so they could run a more in depth scan of it and hopefully find a solution to the puzzle confronting them.

"What do they say?" John asked. The Cheyenne was one of the five Garfish-class light cruisers that made up the rest of Pathfinder Group Four, one that, alongside the Comanche, had switched its heavy tri-beam turret and small hangar bay – which normally housed a single squadron of fifteen veritech fighters – for enhanced sensor arrays that gave both ships greater range and accuracy on their scans than other capital ships, essentially transforming them into a interstellar capable version of the old Cat's Eye recon craft, albeit much better armed, as the ships retained their secondary weapons and missile tubes.

"They've picked up a sizeable fleet of ships in orbit over the planet, along with a small, highly radioactive debris field."

"How many ships?"

"They read eighteen ships in orbit of various different sizes and configurations, though most appear to be civilian designs with minimal armour and no weapons. However, two are definitely warships, quite large ones."

"How large?"

"Comparable to a Tokugawa-class carrier sir. Strangely they're not picking up any energy weapon signatures from the two vessels yet the ships are literally covered with cannon batteries of some kind."

"They could be kinetic weapons," Tylen speculated out loud.

"Possibly. Though there effective engagement range would be quite short if that's the case," John replied gaining a nod of agreement from the Zentraedi. While railguns and other kinetic energy weapons had their place in space combat, they weren't really the most ideal weapons to use in capital ship engagements due to their purely ballistic nature and being relatively slow moving in comparison to lasers and particle beams. Even the most lumbering of Human or Zentraedi ships could easily dodge railgun slugs and other kinetic rounds at ranges greater than forty-five thousand kilometres, point blank range really, when you considered that most directed energy weapons – like the beam cannons that the Excalibur was armed with – had an effective engagement range of three hundred thousand kilometres.

Still, he mentally resolved not to underestimate those warships, as while kinetic weapons were short range by their standards, they were still quite deadly. Quite a few Zentraedi ships had found that out the hard way during engagements with the SDF-1, especially the four 180cm rail cannons they'd added to the ship during her reconstruction. Heavy kinetic kill rounds from those cannons had gutted a number of ships.

Abruptly, alarms went off at a number of consoles. "Sir, the unknown warships are turning towards us and are launching fighters," Tactical reported.

"Scramble alert squadrons," John ordered immediately. "Instruct the pilots that they are not to fire unless fired upon. All ships go to yellow alert. Communications, attempt to make contact with those ships; I'd rather avoid a fight if possible." Especially given how decidedly one sided it would be; our weapons will likely have far more range than theirs if they are just armed with kinetics, he thought.

"Aye, sir," the officers at the flight operations and communications stations responded immediately, even as the ships klaxons sounded a few brief blasts, before going silent then releasing another series of alarm sounds summoning the crew to stations and waking any who were sleeping off duty and prompting them to dress just in case the ship went to a red or battle alert status.

"Do you think we will end up engaging in combat, sir?" Tylen asked calmly, though inwardly, he felt a familiar surge of excitement at the prospect. He might have been micronized for several years now, but at the end of the day, he was still a Zentraedi, and combat was in his blood. It was, after all, what he had literally been made for.

"I don't know," John admitted; he hoped they didn't end up fighting, but he wasn't afraid of engaging the unknown warships in battle and disabling them if possible or, if necessary, destroying them. "I'd rather not fight those warships, but if they give me no other option, I'm fully prepared to blast them out of space."

"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from one of the unknown warships," communications reported. "Message is in… this can't be right."

"What is it?" John asked, frowning and wondering just what had made the younger officer react with such surprise.

"Sir, according to the computer, the message is in a language that's an extremely bizarre hybrid of Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Old Norse, and Sumerian."

"I don't understand," Tylen commented with a puzzled frown.

"They're old Earth languages," John explained, his own face expressing surprise at this development. "Nobody has spoken any of them in centuries or millennia. I'm curious as to how another race could possibly know any of them, let alone have a language that incorporates elements of all four. Communications, feed the message through the translation matrices; let's see if we can understand them."

"Aye, sir, engaging translation system. The message is translating, sir, though it might be a bit rough."

"On speakers."

"Aye, sir."

Immediately, overhead speakers crackled to life, and an oddly accented male voice spoke. "Attention unknown vessels, this is the Battlestar Galactica, identify yourselves, or we will fire upon you."

"They must not realise they're no threat to us," Tylen commented, as the threat hung in the air of the bridge.

"We can't assume that, Ty," John reminded the Zentraedi officer. "Still, as I said before, I'd rather avoid an armed confrontation if I can. Communications, send this message back 'Attention Battlestar Galactica, this is the United Earth Ship Excalibur. We are here on a mission of exploration; we mean you no harm but will defend ourselves if attacked.'"

"Aye, sir."

"Do you think they'll listen?" Tylen asked.

"I don't know. I hope so, but if they're not in a listening mood…" John let his voice trail off into a sigh for a moment. "Tactical, power up weapons and open all forward gun ports, but do not target the Galactica yet. If we do end up in a fight here, I want it to be our opponents who fire the first shot, not us."

"Aye, sir," tactical acknowledged, the young lieutenant's hands dancing across the console, relaying command's to the crews in the gunnery control rooms. Almost immediately, John could hear the faint rumbling of hatches opening as multiple particle beam cannon and laser/particle combination cannon arrays slid – aside from those mounted in the heavy exterior turrets – out of their docked positions and aligned themselves roughly in the direction of the Galactica but not precisely targeting her – yet anyway.

"Sir, all gunnery crews report all cannons charged and ready," tactical reported even as alarm klaxons went off, the activation of the ship's weapons systems, and the subsequent opening of the gun ports, automatically triggering a full battle alert.

"Sir we're receiving a response from the Galactica," communications reported breaking the tense, oppressive silence that had fallen on the bridge.

"This is Galactica Actual to Excalibur, please confirm you said that you are an Earth vessel?" a different male voice, this one ringing with the authority of an experienced leader of men, spoke.

John exchanged a surprised look with Tylen. Both Human and Zentraedi catching the surprising urgency, and quiet but at the same time desperate hope, in the request to confirm that the Excalibur was an Earth ship. Hmm first these people, whoever they are, speak a hodgepodge of languages from the Ancient World and now they talk about Earth in a tone like it's the most important thing in the world to them. What the hell is going on here? He thought confused if these people are humans from the Ancient World then how the hell did they get all the way out here? And why this desperate hope about Earth? I suppose there is really only one way to find some answers.

"Communications send this back 'we confirm that Galactica we, and our companion ships, are from Earth'" he ordered after a moment.

"Aye sir."

"I really do not understand this," Tylen said aloud, "are these people from Earth?"

"Possibly, Ty," John admitted frowning thoughtfully, "though if they are from Earth then from the hybrid language their speaking their ancestors must have left Earth two or three millennia ago. I do not understand how that could be possible."

"Maybe the Galactica's crew will have the answers that we seek," Tylen suggested as puzzled by this development as his CO was.

"We can only hope that they do," John agreed.

"Sir, scanners indicate that the incoming fighters are breaking off and returning to their ships," sensors reported.

"Very well. Communications instruct our veritech's to return and assume standard CAP formation around the task force," John ordered.

"Aye sir," communications acknowledge a moment before another message from the Galactica came over the radio.

"Galactica Actual to Excalibur understood. Allow me to properly introduce myself I am Admiral William Adama. Would it be possible for you to send a delegation over to my ship? There is much we need to discuss," the now identified voice from the Galactica asked. "You have my word that anyone you send will not be harmed."

John frowned slightly, despite that assurance he was a little wary of sending any delegation over to the Galactica at this time. He had few people on board who were really authorised to engage in face to face first contact procedures – which was what this was even if the 'aliens' were possibly more humans. Fortunately this decision did not necessarily have to be his to make. Thanks to the wonders of hyperspatial communications he could, shamelessly, dump this particular hot potato in Lisa's lap. Knowing her she'd certainly send a full diplomatic team to aide them immediately as the main body of the expeditionary force was only six kiloparsecs away – any of the fleets main ships could make the journey here in an hour or two at full speed.

"Communications is the translation matrix good enough for real time communication now?" he asked after a moment.

"Not quite yet sir," communications replied, "we're still having trouble keeping a firm lock on the grammar and syntax."

"Very well. Send this back 'unfortunately we cannot do that at this time, admiral. We require more time to fully translate your language. However in the meantime we will contact our superiors on hyper comm. and arrange for a formal diplomatic team to be sent to this location.'"

"Aye, sir," communications acknowledged a moment before the sensors chimed a warning.

"Report," John demanded turning his full attention to the sensor station.

"Sir, sensors are picking up new contacts appearing thirty thousand kilometres out from the planet," the officer answered.

"How many? And what do you mean by appearing?"

"We're detecting ten, no twelve, ships. Configuration unknown. And they're literally just appearing from nowhere. Sensors indicate that, just prior to each ship appearing there is a momentary distortion in the barrier between normal space and hyperspace," the sensor officer replied running a hand through his hair. "It's almost like a fold sphere emerging but it's both far too small and far too brief for the appearances to be the result of any known hyperspace folding process.

"The new vessels are definitely warships sir," the officer continued. "Sensors indicate that each ship is covered with some kind of missile launchers as well as what look like fighter launch tubes. However they appear to be very lightly armoured by our standards and even in comparison to the Galactica. If I had to guess I'd say they're a missile cruiser/carrier hybrid of some sort."

"Interesting," John replied. "Communications send a message to the Galactica. Ask if they have any idea who these newcomers are. Also send a message to the unknowns requesting they identify themselves."

"Aye, sir."

"Sir the newcomers are launching fighters a lot of them, tally one hundred and fifty individual contacts and rising," sensors reported. "The fighters appear to be armed with two 50mm autocannons similar to the ones we used in the GU-11 gun pods and eight missiles." The sensors chirped. "We're picking up power surges on all the orbiting ships, they appear to be powering up their engines. In addition the other battlestar is powering weapons."

"Looks like we've jumped into the middle of some kind of war," John mused aloud.

"Looks like," Tylen agreed with a slight frown before the bridge speakers crackled to life again.

"Galactica Actual to Excalibur Actual," Admiral Adama said this time back dropped by klaxons that were probably summoning the battlestars crew to battle stations. "The new ships are warships belonging to a group we know as the Cylons. They destroyed our world's and have been chasing us ever since as they're committed to either enslaving or wiping out every last man, woman and child of the human race.

"The Cylon fleet is far too strong for the Galactica and the Pegasus to fight," Adama continued sounding pained to admit it, there was also a clear note of self-loathing there about having to do something that he would rather not do. "We are thus preparing for an emergency jump to another location. I advise that you do the same as if the Cylons learn your from Earth they'll attack and disable your ship so they can get Earth's location from your databanks. We can provide rendezvous coordinates."

John frowned and started to open his mouth to give another order to communications only for the officer there to speak up first. "Sir we're receiving a transmission from the Cylons," he reported, "what the hell! The Cylons are transmitting a computer program, from its structure I'd say it's a virus or logic bomb of some type. It does not appear to be compatible with our systems, still counter-viral programs are erasing it."

"Cyber-warfare that is a hostile act," Tylen pointed out recalling all the things he'd learned over the last few years about the concepts of cyber and information warfare. A kind of warfare that – aside from the most basic ECM practices such as jamming enemy communications – had been completely alien to the Zentraedi until very recently.

"Agreed," John replied. "Communications tell the Galactica that we will accept their rendezvous coordinates, but advise them that our FTL systems are different to theirs and we may take a few minutes longer to reach the specified coordinates. Tactical are any of the Cylon ships in our weapons range yet?" He hoped they were as he wasn't about to let an attempt at cyber-warfare against his ship, presumably to disable them so these Cylons could board and mine their navigational database, go unanswered if he could help it.

"Not yet sir," tactical reported. "The first wave of their fighters will not enter weapons range for another forty seconds. The first capital ship will enter range approximately thirty seconds later."

"Sir we're receiving coordinates from the Galactica," communications reported, "shall I pass them to navigation?"

"Yes."

"Aye sir, passing the coordinates to navigation now."

"I've got them," the officer at the bridge navigation station reported, "the coordinates are slightly different to the format that we use ourselves. The navigational computer can convert them but it will take a minute or two. Shall I do so, sir?"

"Proceed," John ordered a moment before an alarm went off at the tactical station.

"Cylon fighters are in weapons range," tactical reported "they're painting us."

"All point defence batteries and pinpoint barriers stand by," John ordered, "communications instruct the CAP to move to intercept the Cylon fighters but advise the pilots that they'll need to get back here quickly once we've converted the Galactica's navigation data so they're not to stray too far."

"Sir Galactica and the other ships are leaving there space fold process appears to be identical to the one used by the Cylons," sensors reported.

"We will have to ask them about that later," Tylen commented getting an approving nod from John a moment before alarms went off.

"Vampire, vampire, vampire," tactical reported, "Cylon fighters launching missiles. Warhead nature unknown. Firing interceptors."

John nodded even as the ship shivered slightly as Mark-III Foxfire interceptor missiles roared away from the ships defensive missile batteries towards the incoming storm of Cylon missiles. John glanced at the command station monitors which showed the missiles on a clear interception course for the Cylon weapons, overtaking the Alpha fighters of the CAP. Chew on that, he thought as the Foxfires arrived and summarily knocked the missile salvo, which was small by their standards, out of the sky in a blaze of self-immolation.

"Navigation status?"

"We're just completing the conversation now sir. Feeding the coordinates into both the hyperspace fold system and to the other ships in our group," navigation reported.

"Very well. Communications order the CAP to return to the fold perimeter immediately."

"Aye sir," communications acknowledged.

"Sir Cylon capital ship entering weapons range," tactical reported, "they're missile launchers are powering up."

"Then let's discourage them, Lieutenant," John said with a slight smirk, "instruct gunnery to open fire with primary batteries."

A faint, predator smirk of his own appeared on the tactical officer's face. "Aye, sir," he acknowledged before relaying the order to open fire with the Excalibur's main batteries to the crews located in the gunnery control rooms located deeper within the ship's hull.

"Sir all ships report they've received the converted coordinates," communications reported as a faint thrum of power sounded through the ship as, for the first time, the Excalibur fired her heavy anti-ship cannons in anger. "All ships report hyperspace fold systems are ready."

"Is our CAP within range of the fold sphere?"

"Yes sir they are."

"Then execute space fold."

"Aye, sir."

Even as the last syllable left the lips of her captain, the barrage of particle beams from the Excalibur reached her enemy and smashed into the main connecting spar of the Cylon basestar with searing white-hot force. The sheath of highly regenerative biometallic armour, that could withstand multiple hits from all but the strongest of the Colonials anti-ship cannons, offered no protection from the assault of hyper-accelerated, super-compressed charged particles. Instead crumpling and distorting, as it would against a kinetic slug absorbing the worst of the projectiles energy thus limiting the damage to the hull beneath, it simply vaporised.

Unopposed by the armour the beams instantly cut into, then through, the titanium/carbon/steel outer hull of the basestar. Components of the organic computer system that ran through the entire ship like a humanoid nervous system disintegrated immediately triggering a barrage of overloads and systems failures. And still the beams weren't done as they burned through the thinner, inner pressure hull to rip deep into the very core of the basestar vaporising humanoid and mechanical Cylons before the horrified synthetic lifeforms could even begin to react let alone flee.

The beams vanished but the damage was already done. Badly wounded the Cylon basestar, venting debris and burning atmosphere from the massive breach ripped in its hull by the beams, visibly staggered in space as its gravitational-magnetic sublight propulsion system spluttered once then failed as the basestars damaged reactors scrammed to prevent detonation. Backup generators immediately powered up restoring some power to the ships systems but only those that were by far the most essential for the comfort of the humanoid Cylon crew and the ships own organic systems such as life support and artificial gravity.

Fortunately for the dazed Cylon crew the crews on the human ships did not take advantage of their sudden extremely vulnerable condition. Instead fold spheres, looking for all the world like spheres of opaque glass, appeared around the Excalibur and the other five ships of Pathfinder Group Four. The ship outlines blurred then the spheres collapsed and vanished as they and their contents instantly transferred from normal space to hyperspace.

The first clash between the Robotech Expeditionary Force and the Cylons was over.

Cylon Command Basestar

Entering Orbit of New Caprica

"What the frack was that?"

The shocked exclamation from the model three humanoid Cylon, known as D'Anna Biers to the Colonials, hung in the air of the command chamber. The six humanoid Cylons in the room – a One, a Three, two Sixes, an Eight and a Five – had just witnessed something that seemed like it had stepped right out of popular science fiction. A single unknown vessel of cruiser weight nearly gutting a basestar with a single barrage of energy weapons fire. It seemed impossible but they'd seen it with their own eyes and with the basestar sensors.

"The Colonials have obviously met somebody over the last few months," the Eight, who'd once called herself Sharon Valerii, said breaking the stunned silence. "And whoever they are it is obvious from that display that their technology is considerably more advanced than anything possessed by either ourselves or the Colonials."

"Could it be the Thirteenth Tribe?" one of the Sixes questioned.

"It's possible," Sharon agreed with a frown, "according to the Colonials Sacred Scrolls the thirteenth tribe, if they are real, did leave Kobol a thousand years before the other twelve. Theoretically that would give them more than enough time to have advanced to a technology level beyond both their brethren and ourselves."

"I doubt it would be the Thirteenth," One pointed out with a frown, in fact he like the rest of his line knew that that ship – and its companions – could not have belonged to the Thirteenth Tribe as said tribe was extinct, well aside from five individuals hidden amongst the Colonial Remnant individuals who were really – though they didn't know it – Cylons like the rest of the Thirteenth Tribe had been. "Even if they left Kobol a millennium before the other tribes I doubt, with the limited resource base they would have in comparison to the other twelve, that they would be able to develop the level of technology needed to turn what has always been seen as science fiction into science fact."

"Who else could it be?" Sharon asked.

"I do not know," One admitted honestly. "But whoever, or indeed whatever, they are it is obvious that they've allied with the Colonials against us."

"We cannot be certain of that," the second Six pointed out, "they could have fired on both our raiders and the basestar as a reaction to our attempt to download a logic bomb into their systems. An act of aggression that they would be well within their rites to respond to."

"Maybe attempting to download a logic bomb into their systems was the wrong thing to do," One admitted, "and you are correct it could easily be what provoked them, whoever they are, into firing at us. What is the status of the damaged basestar?"

Five put his hand into the datastream and checked with the hybrid. "The basestar is heavily damaged," the Five reported after a moment, "they have a hull breach in a dozen compartments across four of the central decks with collateral damage throughout the ship. The basestar hybrid reports that all primary systems are off line and that the main reactors are damaged and have scrammed to prevent detonation. There are electrical fires still burning in a dozen areas though our brothers and sisters aboard are getting them under control."

"Can they jump?"

"Not at present; one of the basestar's jump drives was right in the path of one of the beams and as such has been completely destroyed. They can adjust the fold fields of the remaining two to compensate but it will take some time," the Five reported. "We should dispatch additional damage control units to help them with repairs."

One by one the other humanoid Cylons in the command room nodded in agreement. "Very well dispatch additional damage control units to the damaged vessel," One ordered.

"By your command," Five acknowledged.

"In the meantime we should continue with our mission here and deploy our ground forces," the One suggested. "We should also summon reinforcements in case the battlestars and their new friends return with reinforcements."

Once again all the other humanoid Cylons in the command room nodded in agreement with One's suggestion before wirelessly polling all the other humanoid Cylons on board for their opinion on this particular matter.

"Do we have consensus," One asked.

"We do," Sharon answered.

"Then begin landing our ground troops and send the signal to The Colony requesting reinforcements."

"By your command."